Grandfather of boy, 7, with severed head in plea

THE Sydney grandfather of a seven-year-old boy pictured clutching the severed head of a Syrian soldier has urged the Australian Government to bring the boy home.

Truck driver Peter Nettleton told the Australian that he was "gutted" to see on its front page on Monday a photograph of his grandson lifting the head with both hands by the hair.

The newspaper reported that the image was taken in the northern Syrian city of Raqqa and posted on Twitter by the boy's convicted terrorist father, Khaled Sharrouf.

Nettleton, father of Sharrouf's wife Tara Nettleton, told the Daily Telegraph he had thought his five grandchildren had been living in Malaysia while Sharrouf fought with Isis (Islamic State) in Syria and Iraq.

"I'm scared for the children," Peter Nettleton said. "What life are they going to have now?"

"Can't the Government do something to pull these kids away from that man?" he asked.